


Endeavor

by DreamersMyth27



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Imma Give it To Him, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, References to Depression, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko Deserves a Happy Life Okay, Zuko Has a Soft Spot for Children, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23364631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamersMyth27/pseuds/DreamersMyth27
Summary: The day that Zuko has his bandages taken off by the ship’s doctor he stares at himself in the mirror and cries. Everyone else is working, and here he is wasting precious time just so he can pity himself. Zuko is a coward. The night air is cold. His breath comes out in puffs of smoke. His scar still burns.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Ozai & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 218





	Endeavor

**Author's Note:**

> Well, not sure where this will go or why the heck I've decided to do this when online classes for college are killing me, but here you go. Please enjoy tho! 
> 
> Also, I don't have a beta, so please lmk if there are any mistakes <3

The day that Zuko has his bandages taken off by the ship’s doctor he stares at himself in the mirror and cries. Not until after the doctor leaves though. His tears are painful, and none come out of his burned eye. Uncle had warned him that his tear duct would be burned away, but it’s different, realizing that he can’t cry out of one eye.

He refuses to leave his room that day, just wallows and lays on his cot. He doesn’t even get dressed. If Azula were here she would call him lazy. Zuko can’t say he disagrees. He’s been given a chance to go home, a way to be welcomed back by his father with open arms. He must be terrible for not making it his top priority.

Right now, he doesn’t care. He just wants today. Tomorrow he’ll begin making a plan to search the colonies and sailing towards the poles and visiting the other Air Bender Temples. 

Most of the day, Zuko sleeps. Every time he wakes up he feels a pit of guilt in his stomach. Everyone else is working, and here he is wasting precious time just so he can pity himself. He still doesn’t get up. The pit in his stomach is strong, but the hopelessness weighing down his heart is stronger. Today, it is his to indulge in. Tomorrow he will begin to push everything aside until the day he is allowed to go back home, to Caldera.

His sleep is restless, and he wakes up violently often. Sometimes when he wakes up, his hands are covering his scar, which is still tender. Other times, he shoots out of bed and fire spews from his mouth is fast, terrified breaths. And still other times, he wakes up stiff and frozen with a deep-seated fear that won’t go away for hours.

Father was only teaching him a lesson. He shouldn’t have spoken out-of-turn. He deserved what happened. So why is his stupid mind still afraid? Why does he still smell burning hair and flesh with every single inhale?

Zuko is a coward, he knows this. Only a coward would have behaved as he did on the day of the Agni Kai and begged for mercy. Tomorrow he will be brave. Today he will remain a coward.

He settles on his cot again, sick of staring at his disfigured features in the mirror any longer. He won’t sleep well, but it feels like the only thing he can manage. He isn’t sure how much effort he can put into anything else, honestly. 

It’s only after waking up, shooting out of bed and breathing so hard his lungs hurt, that he feels capable of leaving his room. In reality, that has more to do with the fact that its night and almost all of the crew will be sleeping. If he’s lucky, which he often isn’t, the only other people on deck will be a guard or two wandering around. People easy for him to avoid.

He doesn’t bother getting dressed. No one will see him, so what’s the point? Getting dressed feels like too much effort. Even putting his slippers on leaves him exhausted.

The night air is cold. His breath comes out in puffs of smoke. Zuko scowls at the stars twinkling brightly above. If he were back home, he would have snuck onto the roof tonight to look at them. Right now it feels like they’re mocking him.

He just leans against the railing and closes the eyes. The metal is cold through his silk pajamas and it almost feels like it’s burning his arms. He forces himself to stay still. It hurts. Maybe he deserves it.

Zuko knows that this isn’t normal. He’s not supposed to feel so miserable, so much like if he had died his father wouldn’t have cared. Maybe that’s a sign that he should have died. That it was what his father was really after. 

If that were true though, why would his father have given him a way to get back home? Sure, capturing the Avatar isn’t an easy job, but that’s just a sign of how much his father must trust him. There’s no other explanation.

He hates that he’s even thinking maybe his father doesn’t love him. Those are the thoughts of a traitor. His father loves him, he does. If he didn’t, he would have just killed him during the Agni Kai. Leaving someone alive is usually a sign of weakness, so that must mean his father loves him. 

Zuko forces his eyes open, looks out at where the sky meets the blackness of the ocean, and resolutely ignores the tear falling down the unmarred side of his face.

The stars have started to disappear, Zuko notes absently. Dark, angry black clouds are rolling through the sky, coming ever closer to the moon. Tomorrow will be miserable, Zuko is sure. It will probably be drizzling all day, making the decks slick and dangerous for everyone. They’ll have to burn more coal to keep the ship on track if the sea gets too rough, and that will mean they need to stop and replenish their supplies earlier that he wants to. Perhaps they can stop tomorrow. In the distance on the opposite side of the ship’s deck, Zuko can see lights, small and scattered. They’re near the Earth Kingdom, and while those small dwellings are surely not under the control of the Fire Nation, there is sure to be a colony nearby.

Absently, Zuko begins planning out tomorrow. Not that he’s not trapped in his room and refusing to do anything, now that he’s breathing the fresh air of the salty ocean instead of the stale air of his room, he feels a little more himself. He’s still miserable and angry, still so so sad, but he feels more like a human now, and less like some creature who relies on nothing except for sleep and isn’t even useful.

The clouds are still rolling in, and in the distance, Zuko can hear thunder rumbling. He spots a quick flash crack the sky in two and begins counting steadily. After fifteen seconds he hears another rumble of thunder. The storm must be around three miles away. Reasonably, it won’t hit for another three or four hours. That’s good. Hopefully, by then Zuko is sleeping, and if not sleeping making better use of himself than he did today. He can practice forms or something if he’s unable to sleep through the night.

“Prince Zuko, what are you doing out here?” a stern voice asks from behind him. Zuko wills himself not to react, and instead turns around very slowly, trying to look unimpressed. He wonders, idly, if his scar just makes him look angry instead. He’d heard several of the soldiers on board gossiping among themselves that when the bandages come off he’ll look like a mockery of  
General Zhi, from Love Amongst the Dragons.

“Nothing of your concern,” he says, affecting the same tone Azula uses to get what she wants or when she’s threatening people. “You may leave.”

“I have to insist you go back below deck. Captain Jee told me to make sure no one is on deck; there’s a storm about to hit,” he says slowly, looking down at Zuko. The mask hides his expression, but Zuko can hear in his tone that he thinks Zuko’s a stupid child, or at least very annoying. It takes everything he has to avoid scowling. He’s not sure if it works since he still mostly can’t feel how his face moves while his nerves continue healing.

Zuko’s about to argue. He knows how to count how far away a storm is. He was told by the tutors in the Palace. Why would they be wrong? 

He’s about to argue when another jolt of lighting makes the sky as bright as if Agni’s light was shining down from the sun and a deep rumble of thunder follows almost immediately. It’s like at that moment, just to disprove him, the sky has decided to open and unleash the wrath of the heavens upon them. The rain starts, cold. Each drop feels like a needle piercing his skin. That’s not even mentioning when they hit his scar. Zuko ducks his head and starts to run towards the door below deck. The soldier is already there, holding it open.

Zuko slips on the slippery deck and screams as a wave washes over him, dragging him to the ocean. His scar burns. Worse than when he was actually being burned because he’s still awake. He should be freezing, but his body is wildly overheated. He tries to swim to the surface, but every time he manages to get up and take a gulp of air, waves crash onto him and drag him back down. He can’t even call for help, and every time he gets above the water, his ship is further and further away.

Somewhere deep inside, he realizes that feeling so tired and cold when just moments before he had adrenalin coursing through his veins and felt like he was on fire isn’t good. It’s also not good that his face doesn’t hurt anymore. He can’t feel his fingers or his toes, and every time he’s dragged back under the water, swimming up takes more and more effort.

Then it’s too much. His vision is black and all he can hear is silence. He can’t feel anything and it feels almost as if he doesn’t have a body. He can hardly remember his own name. Distantly, he realizes he’s about to die.

Then something thuds against the back of his head. It doesn’t hurt, but he can feel how hard it hit him. All he realizes before he’s no longer aware is that he’s able to breathe.

* * *

“Mama!”

Yanmei turns from the clump of seaweed washed ashore and looks at her daughter with a fond smile.

“What is it, darling?”

“Mama, is the water cold right now?”

She laughs at Lijuan’s innocent question and even more innocent, and slightly puzzled, face. Her daughter pouts.

“Yes, it’s very cold right now, since it’s winter. That’s why mama is only getting seaweed washed ashore instead of swimming to find it like we did in the summer,” she explains. “Want to help mama untangle this seaweed?”

“Okay,” Lijuan says, plopping down onto the cold sand and reaching for the seaweed. Slowly, she begins to untangle it with the skill of someone who’s been doing it for years. “Is this seaweed for eating? I want soup.”

“No, baby, this is for us to dry out and burn. We only eat fresh seaweed; that’s why it’s summer food.”

“Because you can’t swim to get it now?”

“Exactly.”

Lijuan’s brow furrows and she looks back at the water.

“Mama, if it’s too cold to swim, why is there a boy laying in the water?”

Yanmei drops the seaweed she’s untangling and stares at Lijuan. Her daughter looks serious. She’s biting her lip and her brow is still furrowed.

“Where is the boy?”

“He’s over here,” Lijuan says, then smiles and jumps up, skipping off towards a rock outcropping in the distance. Yanmei follows her quickly until Lijuan comes to a stop by the rocks. “I climbed to the top and saw him on the other side.”

Yanmei scrambles up the rocks, uncaring for her clothes; they can be repaired later. Lijuan follows her. At the top, she spots the body right away. A boy, no more than fourteen. He’s laying on his side halfway out of the water, his clothing - a loose red shirt and slacks - are soaked through and his hair is plastered to his head messily. There’s some blood.

“Lijuan, I want you to go home and get your father, do you understand? Stay home once he leaves.”

“Yes, mama,” she says. Yanmei can hear her scramble back down the other side of the rocks and once she’s sure Lijuan has made it down safely she hurries down towards the boy, falling to her knees. She can’t see his face from this angle, but right now she’s more worried about whether he’s breathing or not. 

As soon as she places a hand on his chest, she feels her heart drop. His skin, even through his clothes, is ice cold. She remains there, kneeling on the sand, uncaring for her the water slowly soaking through her skirt. She continues to look over the boy and pushes his hair higher so she can see the base of his skull.

It’s not bleeding, but the skin is stained just as red as the sand beneath his head. She’s inordinately thankful that for whatever reason, most of his head is shaved except for the remains of some type of tail. It makes looking at the wound easier.

“Are you breathing?” she mutters to herself, finally flipping him onto his back. She finches back and a hand flies to her mouth. Half of the boy’s face is just… gone. The skin is bright red and raw, stretching from his nose all the way to his ear. In some areas, the obviously new scar is torn and oozing. 

His face is young.

She can’t pull him out of the water though, not when she’s not sure if he’s even breathing. His chest isn’t moving and she can’t feel any air coming out of her nose, but that means nothing yet. She puts a gentle hand on his neck, waiting, and when she feels something fluttering she sets to work. He most likely just stopped breathing a moment or two ago if his heart is still beating.

She starts pumping his chest and when nothing happens, she pinches his nose and breaths into his mouth. He still doesn’t move. She tries again. And again. She tries and she’s not sure how many times before someone’s arms wrap around her and tug her away.

“He’s gone,” Gui says, placing a comforting hand in her hair and stroking. “You tried your best. It’s okay.”

Then there’s a weak cough from behind her.

Yanmei tugs herself out of her husband’s arms and rushes for the boy. He’s not awake, but he’s breathing. 

“We’re bringing him back home,” she says.

Neither of them says anything about the obvious Fire Nation-style clothes he wears. He’s only a boy, and he’s no enemy of theirs.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry I love making Zuko suffer. More to come, so look forward to that lol  
> Here's my [Tumblr](https://thefuriousstarlightstudent.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come bug me or anything (I secretly love it).


End file.
